All Pretend
by Mirror and Darkling
Summary: When Axel saw Roxas again on the second day of the new school year in their second life, he frowned. Things change when you have a heart, you see.


All Pretend

**Author's Note: **I wanted to write an anti-AkuRoku fic purely for the challenge. I have never once written something dealing with a couple that I didn't enjoy. Since I didn't want to write something like Roxas and Namine, since I would never be able to stay in character, I decided to write one against Axel and Roxas having a relationship. I hope you guys don't hate me for this - I do love AkuRoku. And hopefully those who are also fans of this pairing will give this fic a chance.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Kingdom Hearts or it's characters, though I might need to buy a fire-proof blanket for this. xD

**Warning: **Meh. Nothing terrible. There is cursing, but only a couple of times.

xxx

**All Pretend**

When Axel saw Roxas again on the second day of the new school year in their second life, he frowned.

It had been a long time since they had made that promise to meet again, a long time since they had last spoken. Axel thought he'd be happier to see the blonde boy. He was happy, of course, but he found that he wasn't overjoyed. The red-head was mostly confused. Should he approach the blonde with the intent to kiss him, make his newly aquired heart beat so fast it threatened to leap out of his chest, tell him he missed him and how much he loved him? Or should he...? Axel paused.

He missed him, sure.

The other things...perhaps not so much.

Which was weird because back when they were still wearing those black coats and magic was real, when hearts were something they only dreamed about and every kiss was an experiment, Axel would never have hesitated to go up to Roxas. Never. Roxas was good company. Any chance they got to eat icecream on top of that clock tower or walk through those extremely barren hallways of the World That Never Was or sneak off to each other's room in the middle of the night, when there was no heartless to vanquish or Superior to please, they would seize it. It was a common sight, something the other members of the Organization grew to accept. VIII and XIII were partners, friends, and lovers.

Or at least, they tried to be...

Axel will tell anybody who was willing to listen that he and Roxas had their fair amount of arguements. Roxas was young and stubborn and slightly naive when it came to the concept of 'kill or be killed', which was funny since he was one of the best fighters in the whole Organization, something that drove Axel crazy. He also paid attention.

Axel frowned, and because Roxas was so damn observational, he tried to wipe it from his face. It was _probably_ too late anyway, as Roxas _probably_ knew everything just from that one expression. He _probably_ knew that Axel was having doubts, doubts about their new life, about them, about _everything _in general. And if he ever challenged Axel on these doubts, Axel would _probably_ yell back, "Don't blame me for not having a heart and having to pretend."

And Axel waved and turned away, and he didn't see the look of confusion and saddness that flashed across Roxas' face as he did so, -confusion and saddness because why was Axel walking away with nothing but a small wave, and why did he doubt their relationship?-, and he walked away because what else could he do? He was confused, just as confused as his blonde partner - ex-partner - and any feeling that they had had in their past life...it was all fucking pretend. They didn't know what it meant to be in love, and even if the other members had accepted that, 'oh, they're in love' didn't really mean they had been. Damn it, Roxas was good company, and he was beautiful. Axel would be the first to admit that.

But having a heart changed a lot of things.

Axel walked away and frowned again, because having a heart just became a whole lot harder than it had been a couple of minutes ago. Having Roxas back wasn't like what Axel had thought it would be, and pretending to love him like he had 'loved' him when he had been a Nobody...he wasn't sure he could do that.

xxx

Just a short little thing...I dunno, it was late one night and the first line popped into my head and it went on from there.

DON'T KILL ME. D:


End file.
